


The Hunt

by Light7



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Light7/pseuds/Light7
Summary: For the first time in centuries, Dracula is being hunted.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	The Hunt

Dracula was being hunted.

Lisa had heard stories from her husband about the times men had actively pursued him. Brave young boys from the local villages out to impress a girl by slaying the local monster, or passing mercenaries looking to make some gold. Occasionally all the menfolk in the village would imbibe enough beer and outrage to storm the castle gates.

Depending on his mood, her husband had responded in one of three ways. The first and most common, at least in his youth, was with anger. He’d destroy the problem before it opened the gates, let alone posed a threat. The second response was with amusement, eternal life quickly became dull and people banging on your door to murder you were at least a diversion. The third response rapidly became the most common response. He decorated his lawn with bodied and stopped opening the doors. Eventually, his reputation spread far enough and was backed up with enough bodies that people stopped hunting him.

Lisa never expected to witness a hunt herself.

She watched from one of the balcony’s in the library, safe from any potential fallout. Her husband, fully aware of his pursuer, wandered the shelf stacks, playing the oblivious fool. The pursuer, a young man on his own, crept around the shelves, occasionally clambering on top of them to either avoid been seen by the vampire or to get a better vantage point.  
It was a lot slower and less dramatic than Lisa had expected. In all the stories about vampire hunts, they were always events of great drama. Brave warriors facing merciless monsters. But her husband wandered slowly with a book in his hand, and his pursuer wasn’t much better. Slow and careful, slow and careful. It was almost boring, at least as a spectator sport. Lisa doubted that the young man hunting her husband was bored.

She revised her opinion when the pursuer made a foolish mistake. He miscalculated a jump between shelf stacks and almost fell, only his sure grip let him avoid plummeting down. Instead, he scrabbled back onto the relative safety of the top of the stack. There was no way her husband hadn’t heard that, but he just kept walking.

The pursuer emboldened by his preys apparent lack of hearing started moving again. To Lisa’s relief, he moved faster this time, carefully avoiding the odd book littering the top of the dusty shelves. She knew that some books were sentient and liked to snooze on the very top of the stacks. Stepping on them would rouse them, and they were not pleasant mannered when woken in such a fashion.

Lisa could all but feel the frustration of the hunter as he increased his pace, careful but with speed now. She held her breath as he got almost level with her husband. She didn’t know how he meant to attack; he had no obvious weapon, and her husband was far too strong to be taken down with just one’s hands. But the hunter must have had a plan. He moved boldly, seeming to lose his concern for making a sound of the books on the top shelves.

Lisa clenched his fists when he finally made his move and leapt off the stack, aiming for her husband. She closed her eyes a moment before the two connected and winced at the ruckus that erupted. Her husband cried out in surprise, the sound loud enough to wake all the books in the library sending them all up in a flurry of pages and angry snapping.

The disturbed books blocked Lisa’s view for a moment, but when they fled the library shelves, roosting in the rafters she could see the fight going on amongst the shelves. Two of the twelve-foot-high stacks had fallen, toppled over, crashing in a mess into the neighbouring stacks that somehow did not all fall like dominos. Instead, they leaned dangerously.  
Her husband faced off against the hunter in the mess of toppled shelves and fallen books, the two circling each other silently. The statement didn’t last long. Her husband darted forwards. The hunter rolled out of his path and get to his feet smoothly. Dracula’s back was exposed, and Lisa rolled her eyes, her husband was meant to be good at this. With Dracula’s back exposed, the hunter took full advantage and kicked out, a foot connecting with the back of the vampire’s knee forcing him down to one leg. Then the hunter leapt, grabbing the ends of the vampire’s cape as he did so and lifting it over the ancient monster’s head.

The whole thing was utterly ridiculous.

Lisa snorted a laugh as her husband stumbled around, blinded by his own cape, with his pursuer on his back. Eventually, the lack of vision caused him to trip, and the two went down in a heap. The hunter crowing his victory.

At least until the precariously leaning shelves gave up their fight and fell right onto the warring pair. More books and heavy shelves covered the two, and Lisa felt panic clench in her stomach. She fled the balcony, running down the spiral stairs and out across the mayhem below to reach them.

By the time she reached them, her husband was heaving the shelves off of them. Lisa saw that he’d somehow rolled them when the shelves fell so that his pursuer was beneath him, shielded from the falling debris.

“Adrian?” Lisa called.

“He’s fine,” Dracula said. “Fights like a mad drunk, but he’s fine.” Lisa watched as her son sat up, he was covered in book dust and grinning like a fool.

“I only did that because you’d be expecting anything else,” he wiped the dust from his face, but only smeared it around.

“Come here,” Lisa muttered, licking her thumb to clean his face. Her son flinched away from her and scrambled back.

“No,” he scrambled behind his father, who was trying to right the fallen bookshelf.

“You need a bath,” Lisa said, frowning when she noticed a trickle of blood running down her son’s face from his hairline. She coughed loudly at her husband and pointed at their son.

“He’s fine,” Dracula muttered, wiping the thin blood trail off with his finger before popping it in his mouth.

“Hey,” Adrian snapped. “Don’t eat me.”

“I’ll eat whatever and whoever I like, thank you very much,” Dracula muttered. “Did you have to knock over every shelf in the library?”

“That was your fault,” Adrian said. “If you weren’t so heavy.”

“Stop it,” Lisa sighed. “You bath,” she pointed at Adrian. “You fix this.” She gestured at the surrounding chaos.

“Fine,” Adrian sighed and turned, heading toward the bathrooms. “But I won that one.”

“I heard you from the moment you entered the library,” Dracula yelled back.

“I still got you!” Adrian called, still walking away.

“Only because I let you,” Dracula all but screeched back as Adrian disappeared out the library door.

“Sometimes I wonder who’s the child,” Lisa muttered.

“I let him win,” her husband smirked at her.

“Yes, dear, I know you did. Now tidy this mess.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, please review, I’d love to hear what you think of the chapter.  
> For information on published works and upcoming projects, release dates, as well as weekly blogs, check out [my website](https://katiemarie21.wordpress.com)


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